Dive Brief:
- The city of San Juan Capistrano has sued the California Public Utilities Commission to stop development of the South Orange County Reliability Enhancement, a $350 million transmission project officials say is unnecessary.
- In San Juan Capistrano, San Diego Gas and Electric Co. wants to rebuild a substation that was last renovated in the 1950s, and upgrade transmission lines.
- The Los Angeles Times reports the city's lawsuit relies on reports the newspaper published that concluded California is generating more power than it needs.
Dive Insight:
SDG&E says it will begin work on the project once all permits are received, which the utility expects will happen in October. From there, rebuilding the substation will take until 2021—though the utility says it will work to minimize impacts.
"The four to five-year construction project will be phased in order to minimize community impacts as much as possible," SDG&E says on a web site for the project. Utility contract crews will perform the majority of the work during normal business hours Monday through Saturday.
"The project will begin with the reconstruction of the San Juan Capistrano substation," SDG&E said. "Workers will also begin removing the existing transmission structures and replace them with upgraded, modern structures."
But according to the city, the project is unnecessary. The Orange County Register reports on the lawsuit, which contends the SOCRE transmission project "is not the first unnecessary large-scale construction project approved by the CPUC in favor of private utility companies ... the CPUC has been consistently willing to approve such projects of electric generation facilities in the name of redundancy and reliability."
San Juan Capistrano has also filed for rehearing with the CPUC.
